Mushrooms are one of my favourite foods. There are so many varieties and they’re very versatile. They’re used in so many cuisines English, French, Italian, Chinese, Thai and so many others.
I love wild mushrooms, but am not confident enough in my fungi knowledge to forage and cook what I find. There are too many deadly lookie-likies!
White, button and chestnut mushrooms are very easy to get hold of, but more specialist ones such as ceps, multi-coloured oysters and are more tricky to find. The solution? Homegrown mushroom kits!
I recently bought some of the dowels mentioned below; 30 dowels each of Enoki, Indian Oyster and Pearl Oyster mushrooms. A neighbour recently felled a hardwood tree, which was perfect timing; dowels need to be inserted into freshly cut wood. We cut 3, metre-long logs which Justin then drilled holes into for the dowels. The logs now live in our greenhouse, which we’ve turned into something of a stumpery with ferns, hostas and other warmth & shade-loving plants.
The only problem (if I can call it that) with the logs is that the mushrooms won’t begin ‘fruiting’ for at least a year – so I’ll have to be very, very patient! With the other two homegrown mushroom kits that we’ve featured, you’re sent mushroom spawn and substrate and growing container (box or bag). All you need to do with these is mist with a spray bottle of water and you’ll be harvesting mushrooms in a matter of weeks! In addition, these other kits can be positioned indoors – so you don’t even need a garden or outside space.
- Dowel starter kit: £15.00, Ann Miller’s Speciality Mushrooms
- Black pearl king oyster grow-at-home kit: £20.00, Marvellous Mushrooms
- Urban Farm-It XL mixed bundle oyster mushroom growing kits (pink & gold): £28.99, Amazon
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